


It Was Cold

by Whispatchet



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24177421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispatchet/pseuds/Whispatchet
Summary: Subcon Forest wasn't exactly the tropics.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 210





	1. Dead Reflection

It was cold. 

It had been cold for a long time, frigid air seeping in through the window above him. The shackles around his biceps were covered in frost which bit his skin, even through his sleeves, and the bruises he had earned struggling against them had spread down his arms to his fingertips, turning them from the cold blue to a dark purple. His whole body ached and yet.. somehow didn't hurt at all, anymore. 

He lacked the strength to do much more than dully watch his breath mist in front of him. The last vestigial remnants of warmth in this horrible place. Slow, shallow breaths… it was too hard to do much else.

He had dozed in and out of consciousness a few times, blissful darkness and complete lack of feeling. Honestly, waking up from one of those moments was always a surprise. And a torment. To return to that dark cellar with pain and cold and numb threading through his entire body. To have to watch his breath as they grew further and further apart.

He blinked slowly as he realised that the mist had stopped forming in front of him. Which was strange… it still felt like he was breathing.. Had the air gotten warmer…? No. No, absolutely not. Then why wasn't it…?

He was suddenly struck by the feeling of falling, landing on the cold stone floor with an unceremonious "Ooof!"

He lay there stunned for a few moments. Had his shackles broken? After being so cold for so long, the metal might have grown weak? It… seemed a stretch. Slowly, he brought his arms in, and pushed himself up, before he could question how he had the strength to do so.

It didn't stop him from staring at his hands in bafflement though. They were pitch black, and giving off the faintest purple aura.That… was unexpected.

He sat back on his rear and marveled at his hands, turning them over in wonder. He followed the colour up his arms and then looked down at his chest. It was the same pitch black. So were his legs. He'd never seen such a thing! He didn't feel as weak, either, though he was still wretchedly cold. Might have had something to do with how bare his body was. His clothes rotted away? So soon..?

He rubbed his biceps where the shackles had been, and looked up where he had been bound to the wall.

A raspy yelp ripped from his thin chest as he scrabbled backwards across the stones.

_He_ hung limply with dislocated shoulders in the shackles around his arms, body thinning and distinctly blue. _His_ hair was matted and dusty, _his_ jaw hanging open slightly, breathless. _His_ eyes were frosted over, sightlessly staring vacantly at the stone floor. Trails from tears seemed to have permanently marked his cheeks.

_He_ was a… dead reflection.

He continued to shuffle backwards from the form hanging before him until he pressed his back into the wall opposite. He tried to come up with a reason -any better reason- for what he was looking at but nothing came to mind no matter how hard he tried. He had become a cold, shadowy ghost, and the lifeless mannequin he left behind.

Suddenly, a cold snap of air and a loud thudding came from the rooms upstairs. Terrified, he pulled to his knees and scrambled to hide behind a nearby barrel. No sooner was he out of sight, were the doors to the cellar flung open, admitting a tall ominous figure to the freezing room.

Black as night with a misty, cold aura, she was hunched forward, clawed hands pawing the air in front of her as she moved.

_"I heArd yOu cRy out.. mY prINce…"_ She crooned softly, a deranged cadence to their distorted, haunting voice. _"ArE yoU reaDy to comE oUt…? If you pRomIce to beHavE…"_

He felt an ache in his heart as he watched the creature slink across the cellar floor towards the body on the wall. She reached a hand up to pet it's hair. _"My prInCe…?"_ She pressed. It could, rather understandably, give no reply. 

The cold in the air seemed to ripple as she became irritated. _"YoU caNNot givE mE the SilEnt trEatmEnt!!"_ She snarled, seemingly oblivious to how dead 'her prince' had become in her absence. _"I demANd yOu anSwer me!"_

It could, as it turned out, give her the silent treatment, offering a resounding, unflinching silence.

He covered his mouth with his hands to keep the scream of fright from bumbling out of him as the hair and head directly under her clawed hand snapfroze, a cluster of sharp ice crystals erupting from part of the skull above the right eye.

_"YoU cAN'T IgnORe me forEvEr!!"_ She screeched. _"You'Ll coMe aRound!! YoU alWays DO!!"_

She turned from the ice stricken corpse, and stormed back across the cellar. She took the stairs two at a time, and slammed the door shut with force enough to shake the room. He returned his terrified eyes to the other wall in time to see the ice shards fall to the floor, leaving a gaping hole in what used to be his head.

…...He had to get out of here.

He slowly made his way over to the exterior cellar door, watching behind him for any sign of the enraged demon returning to continue her tantrum. On reaching the ladder, he flew up it as fast he could, hands and feet hardly touching the rungs as he went.

He pushed open the trapdoor with one hand, and flung himself out of it, into a poff of freshly fallen snow.

The shivers that went up his back made him supremely uncomfortable.

He closed the trap door behind him, and started to creep away. The gardens that had once surrounded this place were practically invisible under the thick snow… it seemed so barren and worn, the lake frozen over, the gate half collapsed and useless, even the angel statues that stood at the entrance had started to crumble, their heads having fallen off.

As he made his way through the grounds towards the gate, a loud roar sounded from the manor house behind him. He spun around, and saw the whole building shaking, the dark, oppressive aura that his captor had worn as a cloak blasting out of the windows and doors… including the trap door he had just escaped from.

The sky above grew dark, as the snow that had been softly falling started to come down in a raging blizzard. Ice crystals started to spike out of the ground all around the manor, building higher and higher, surrounding the grounds in tall, oppressive icy walls.

Terrified that his escape had been noticed, he turned around and sprinted for the ruined gate, half blinded by the snow. He slipped through a gap in the ice before it closed over, and continued to run. The snow and wind whipped around him, biting at his ghostly form from all sides and blurring the scenery he was passing, but he still continued to run. He was breathless and tired and freezing as he pulled through the growing snowdrift across the town bridge and down the path into the forest, but he continued to run.

It wasn't until he was well into the forest, where the snow was blowing less harshly, when he finally slowed from a frantic sprint, though continuing to move further and further away from the centre of the raging snow storm. He was shivering, from cold, or fear, or both, he wasn't entirely sure. He hugged himself as he walked between the trees, a heavy fatigue starting to settle on his shoulders. 

He paused in his trudging as his eyes landed on a huge tree, with a hollow in the trunk. The snow had piled up outside it and around it, but didn't seem to have collected inside. The thought of a refuge was consuming, and he made a direct line for it. Collapsing inside the shelter of the hollow, he curled into a ball, exhaustion taking over and pulling him into an empty, dreamless sleep.

It was still cold.


	2. Consumed by Dread

It was cold. 

It was a strange sensation. It made his skin tingle, and his fingers stiff, and his whole body felt it so keenly. It seemed like everything was cold too. The walls, the floor… the snow, which sat in a small pile on the other side of the room.

He looked around, blinking frost out of his eyes. He'd not had a body like this before. With arms and legs and everything. It might need a bit of repair here and there, but that was alright, nothing he hadn't had to do before. Though he wouldn't know the extent of the damage until he'd limbered up a bit more. These inanimate vessels could take some time to get used to moving around.

Looking up, he was starting to make out the shape of chains, lashed to his arms. Odd for something this shape to be wall mounted. While he had nothing against wall mounted bodies as such, he liked to get around a little more than that! No, this just would not do. 

He flexed his hands, pulling red strings out of the ether with well practiced ease. They coiled around his fingers familiarly, before snaking up towards the chains. Slowly, the vibrantly coloured strands wound around the cold metal of the chains, twisting tighter and tighter. A movement of his fingers was all it took; the strings shattered the oppressing chains, and gravity promptly dropped him onto the floor.

Now he'd been in some fragile bodies before, but this one hadn't seemed like it when he had first been inspecting it. So, when landing on his feet on the stone floor, the tremors that ran from his heels up through his legs to his hips came as something of a surprise. He flopped forward with an "Oof!", the remnants of the chains rattling loudly against the floor.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked his body over. The thin legs seemed alright, much as that feeling suggested otherwise. He could always levitate had they been beyond repair, though walking on his own two legs was a rather novel idea. He pat himself down, inspecting the rest of his body now that his arms were free. The motion made the shackles slide down his skinny arms to his wrists, stopping there as they didn't fit over his hand. They jangled, and he shook his wrists back and forth, giggling at the sound they made. He grinned widely. He hadn't realised the body could talk! What fun!  
"AAAAAA!" He called out, listening to the voice bounce off the walls.

The smile fell from his face as a chill swept through the already cold room. An aura was filling the air; dark, powerful, and corrupted... and he felt his body be consumed by dread. That… what was that? He couldn't… stop that feeling rushing through him… and before he knew what was happening, his body had lurched forward, trying to stand but finding the thin legs unable to hold him, resulting in an awkward, terrified scramble to hide between some barrels. This body was terrified of something, and it was affecting him too. He had never had a body do this before! They weren't _supposed_ to be able to feel anything!

He hardly had time to ponder the fear or the frantic move to hide, when the aura grew stronger, making him retreat further behind the barrel, against the opening of an old laundry chute. A door flung open, and a figure started down the stairs, a shroud of darkness surrounding them.  
 _"I hEarD you cAll foR me, my prINce!"_ It called in an elated, distorted, feminine giggle. _"I knEw yoU cOulD noT igNoRe me foReve-"_

He felt the air go very still, and risked peeking out from behind the barrel. The creature was staring at the wall where he had only just scrambled away from. He could see her shaking from his hiding place, looking slowly from side to side. Her piercing red gaze landed on a pile of snow at the base of a ladder on the far side of the room. The hulking figure stalked over to the snow, and stood by it, slowly following the ladder up to the trapdoor that led to the outside. He could see spindly, clawed hands pawing the air with frantic, twitching movements.

He could hear her breathing, panting harder and harder, each breath becoming harsher and harsher, finally accumulating in a deranged scream which shook the whole house. Waves of dark, cold miasma pulsed out of her, skittering across the stone floor, everything in its path turning to ice at its touch.

He fled. He turned and fled up the laundry chute, his magic levitating him through the air, even though it was a bit of a tight squeeze for his body. He popped out in the uppermost corridor of the manor, and slammed the cover of the chute closed, backing up, thin feet resting on the floor as he panted. A rattling from inside the chute made him squeak, and he turned to flee up the nearby attic stairs.

It was a reaction that came a few seconds too slowly. A wave of that horrible, frightening power poured out of the chute, gushing over the carpet and clipping his heels as he flew up into the attic. He slammed the attic door shut, and dove for the dusty wardrobe against the wall, climbing inside it and shutting the door, huddling up in an old, moth eaten wool cloak, watching the tiny crack under the door with wide, frightened eyes. 

He could still feel the cold, the horrifying aura, and the shaking of the house, and he held his breath, waiting, hoping he would be safe. The house continued to rattle, and his body was still paralized with a fear he didn't understand. Why was he so… afraid?

He hissed between pointed teeth as a new sensation snapped through his already weakened legs. He looked down, and had to stop himself from shrieking in horror. His thin legs… were turning to ice. Slowly, slowly, the biting cold was consuming him.

While alarming and painful, he knew this was nothing to worry about. He'd been through worse. Though that same strong force, that relentless motivation that moved his body without his say so seemed to disagree with the notion. He could feel that his whole body was stricken with terror. 

_I don't want to die! I don't want to die!!_

He.. couldn't die, what kind of irrational..

He couldn't even finish the thought. He was already flexing his hands, summoning the same red strings he had used to escape his bonds in the cellar. He coiled them around his thighs, above the encroaching ice, and before he could stop himself, he pulled them taut, severing both legs above the knee. He bit his bottom lip to stifle the scream of pain, and watched with wide eyes as his slim legs, which he had been so excited about walking on, were enveloped entirely by the ice, becoming completely crystalline. 

Panting hard, looked himself over. The rest of him thankfully, seemed to be unaffected, with his legs removed. Slowly, he reached out and prodded one of the dismembered limbs with a slender finger curiously. Only to yank it back as the leg shattered into fine ice shards. He swallowed, and backed away from the ice, pressing into the side of the wardrobe, pulling the wool cloak around him as he tried not to cry.

It was still cold.


	3. Anguish and Anger

It was cold.

A chilled wind rolled up his back and around his body, pulling him from his rather unsatisfying rest. Sitting up and looking around, coming out of the haze of sleep had him confused at first. But, as he looked down at his inky black body, it all came back. His corpse. His escape. The storm.

He hugged himself and peered out of the hollow tree. The snow was still falling, though the harsh wind seemed localised to the far side of the forest, where the town and the manor had been. Though it was some distance from where he sat, he could see the tall walls of ice in the distance. They had clearly been meant to keep him inside… his escaping before he was trapped there was in that case nothing short of a miracle.

He pulled himself out of the tree. He had grown up playing in these woods, though with the unnatural winter hiding the path and biting at the mid spring leaves, he was finding it hard to recognise. The icewall served as a bit of a compass at least… he would be able to figure out where things were as long as he thought about where they were in relation to the town.

Unless he missed his guess, the woodcutter's house should be nearby. The friendly woodcutter had always lived outside of the town, so as not to bother people with the sound of axe and saw. But he always came into town to sell kindling, buy groceries and supplies, and visit the lady from the apothecary shop. It was one of the things that he had loved about his kingdom. It was small enough that you got to know people, but big enough that it still felt like a bustling community.

He trudged through the snow, looking for the woodcutter's tall house. Maybe the kind man wouldn't be too afraid of his new form, and could help him. Not that he was sure what help he needed or anything. But maybe he would loan him some clothes, or maybe share some food? Even just letting him sit by the fire in his house would be a blessing… _anything_ to beat off this wretched cold.

His recollection had been correct, and he quickened his pace as he caught sight of the house in the distance, between the trees. There didn't seem to be any lights on inside, and the chimney didn't have smoke coming from it… perhaps he had been in town when the storm hit? As he got closer, a feeling of worry welled up inside his chest. The windows were all shattered, and the wooden walls were covered in a thick layer of ice, pointed shards of the freezing crystals pointing away from the town and the manor, as if the house had been struck by a wave of water which then froze a moment after impact.

He slowly rounded the house. "...Hello?" He called, startling himself with the uncomfortable rasp in his voice. "Woodcutter? Are you here?"

As he made his way to the other side of the house, he spotted a figure in the snow, standing by a felled tree. Both the figure and the tree were slowly being buried in the falling snow. The figure had an axe in hand, and seemed to be looking out towards the town.

"Woodcutter!" He hurried over as fast as he could. "Are you alright?" The woodcutter did not move.

He frowned, and as he drew close, reached a hand out to the kind man. "Woodcutter?" Still the woodcutter did not move.

He brushed some of the snow off his shoulder. And then jumped back with a horrified gasp.  
The figure before him certainly wore the face of the friendly man he remembered. But the body was solid ice. Slightly transparent, he could see all the way through the man's body to the snow on his other side. He was looking up in surprise in the direction of the town, and… from what things seemed… whatever it had been, was the last thing the man ever saw.

He felt a horrid tightness in his chest. "No...nonono…" He said to himself. This was… he was dead! Body turned into no more than a statue of ice! Was this… _her doing_? Had she… been so dissatisfied with simply bringing about his death in the cellar… that she had to take it out on others too?! This poor man had done nothing to deserve her wrath!

He followed the woodcutter's gaze in the direction of the town.The tightness in his chest grew stronger as he came to a realisation.

"...The town…!"  
  
Turning away from the unfortunate woodcutter, he broke into a sprint, fear left on the wayside as he hurried back to the town. He was hoping beyond hope that his worry was misplaced... that it was just misfortune that the woodcutter had perished this way... And there was still…!

He ran across the bridge, desperately calling out the names of the people that had lived here. The baker. The tailor. The boys he had grown up with. The girls that had played in the town square. The doctor. The florist. Anyone.

No one returned his call.

Tears poured down his cheeks as he took in the sight of the place. The houses and shops here had fared even worse than the woodcutter's house. All of them were ice crusted and broken, but here, this close to the towering wall of ice, huge shards of ice pierced the ground, protruding from walls and door frames. Some of the buildings had collapsed completely.

Getting closer, what he saw made an anguished wail pull out of him. Not a soul had survived.

Ice statues stood where his subjects and friends had once stood, some, like the woodcutter, locked into expressions of surprise, or even more luckily, ignorance. Others, not so much, permanent expressions of fear on their faces.

A few poor souls suffered even worse. As the storm raged and the town fell, shards of ice had burst from the ground in frantic patterns… and some of these cold spears had hit living targets, puncturing their bodies before they too had turned to ice, agony all that remained.

Utterly distraught, he wandered back through the town, and over the bridge, towards a clearing, with a stream running through it. It had been special, that little clearing, just on the edge of the forest. Far enough away from the town that it felt secluded, but close enough that it felt safe, it had been where generations of children had played. Cubby houses and raised platforms having been built into and around the felled trees, and the children had cared for it like they would one day care for the town proper. A small play village for the Subcon children.

He had played here himself when he had been a boy, joining in games with the others his age where his status meant nothing. Where he was just another child, getting mud on his face and leaves in his hair. They were proud of their space, and often spent more time there than in town, even holding their own parties and festivals, just like the adults did.

He had many fond memories of swimming in the stream here in the summer, or making masks for the spirit festival in the fall. That had been one of the best events of the year as a child. Everyone would make a mask of one of the various spirits that were said to live in the forest, and they would sing and eat around a bonfire, and dance well into the night, before the chill of winter made it too cold to play outside.

He stood at the edge of the clearing in despair. The children's village had not been spared. 

The stream had frozen over. The cubby houses were filled with ice shards, the same as in town. And frightened ice figures were everywhere, masks in hand or worn on their hair.

He fell to his hands and knees and wept into the snow. Everyone… everyone was gone. He was alone. He was alone and it was all her fault. It… wasn't fair. How could she… how could she have killed everyone… how could she have killed the children?! How could she?!

How _DARE she!!_

He let out a roar of anguish and anger, an unfamiliar feeling welling up inside him. It pulsed inside his very core, and broke out of him in a wave, sweeping through the children's village, blowing away the snow from the ground, revealing the old paths and lawns that had been buried. Some of the houses were freed from their icey decorations, the doors blowing open to the force that had struck them.

He looked up in alarm, tears rolling down his dark face. The statues of the children were trembling, and he watched in horror as they cracked and splintered, and broke into shards on the frostbitten grass. It made him feel sick.

But then, there was a soft glow. Each little pile of ice splinters glowed in white or red or green, like a small fire within. He watched in amazement as what seemed like glowing ribbons pulled out of each pile of ice shards, each wearing the same mask each child had once wore, eyes peering through the eye holes even though it didn't seem they had eyes from any other angle.

They drifted around the children's village as he watched, looking around and at one another. He could hear soft coos from them, nothing quite like words, but more… feelings. They were curious and scared, but they seemed to recognise one another, moving together, huddling close.

He swallowed as one of the smaller ones noticed him, still on his hands and knees on the path. It moved easily through the air like a snake in the grass, coming close. He fell back onto his rear as it approached.

"A-ah… w...wait.. I…!"

It paused as he spoke, and then closed the gap between them. The wide, inquisitive gaze peered through the mask into his own eyes for a long moment, before drawing close and… nuzzled his cheek.

He froze at first, but then relaxed as a realisation struck him. They recognised him, too.

Suddenly the others were coming over to him as well, cooing and clicking. He could hear their soft, wordless voices, trying to ask him what was going on, what had happened, telling him how frightened they were.

Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, petting the ghostly children, finding strange comfort in the fact that his hands did not pass through them when he did so. "I'm scared too." He whispered. "Let's… stick together. Okay?"

They drifted around him like a school of fish as he made his way across the children's village, towards the biggest of the old cubby houses. "Let's… hide in here for a while." He told them, crawling through the door and sitting down against the far wall. The children huddled in with him, laying across his lap, on the furniture, filling the small house with a gentle glow. 

Some of them seemed to have fallen asleep quickly, others taking a little longer, quietly crying, or trying to ask him questions. It was something of a relief that they had banded around him so readily. While he didn't think there was much he could do for them… at least he wasn't alone any more. Still, he wasn't content.

It was still cold.


	4. But Here He Was

It was cold.

The wool cloak he had found in the wardrobe was a comfort, but did very little to ward off the chill he felt on his pale blue skin. The house had continued to shake and roar with pulses of ice cold air seeping under the gap in the door for what felt like ages, and even when it did, drumming up the courage to crawl out of the wardrobe took even longer. It was hard to have a sense of time when you were stuck in a small wooden box with nothing but mothballs and ruined clothes for company, but it had to have been hours, at least.

When he finally emerged into the attic proper, it didn't seem like the waves of ice had settled here. The windows had some crystals clinging to the glass, but the floor and walls were dry. He floated over to the large window at the back of the room and peered out. The moon was shining through into the attic, illuminating the snow that was falling steadily outside.

That… didn't seem right. They had only just seen the end of summer, it shouldn't be cold enough for snow. Especially not snow thick enough to blanket the gardens so completely. Everything was buried, the whole property looked like a wasteland! The wall of ice that he could see at the property boundary was also… ah.. _new._

Was this all her doing? That monster he had seen in the cellar… Vanessa…

His heart ached suddenly at the thought of her, and he slapped his cheeks to try and clear his head. Those thoughts weren't his! He'd never met the creature, he shouldn't feel anything about her, except for irritation, as she seemed to be the source of all this.

He... had loved her, though, somehow. The body he was in… it had to be coming from there! It wasn't him! _Couldn't_ have been him. He didn't feel love, he didn't feel fear, he wasn't capable of feeling things like that! He didn't love Vanessa and never did! Why could he not get that through his head! He grasped at his hair and pulled in frustration.

He hadn't been expecting to rip it out. The dusty, matted brown hair that had come away in his thin fingers was indicative of his body's current state of disrepair. It was kind of gross.  
"What a mess you've gotten yourself into..." He said to the ceiling, voice soft and weak.

 _Wait._ Who the heck was he talking about?

Why was this body continually feeding him things like this? Inanimate vessels didn't have memories or feelings. But this one felt so passionately, and was filled with such vivid memories it was hard to separate them from his own. His past seemed to be more and more illusive, like a fantastical dream. 

Instead, feeling like he had lived in this manor with the woman-demon lurking in the floors below him seemed so much more real. A comfortable, safe, normal, reality, even if it ended so… abruptly.

It hurt. It hurt and he hated it. He hated how heartbroken he felt, how afraid he felt. He'd never felt anything like it before, and it was not exactly a pleasant sensation. It was paralyzing. Overwhelming.

He didn't much like the idea of languishing in the attic, but at the same time, he didn't dare venture downstairs. Hopefully, Vanessa would have no interest in coming up here, either. Her power seemed to be able to work just fine on this particular body of his, and the misguided impulses this body was feeding him was especially keen on avoiding that kind of fate.

He sighed to himself. If he was going to be stuck up here because of some stupid emotions, he might as well take the time to do some repair work.

Using the window as a mirror, he guided his red threads over his face with sweeping movements of his hands. As with all of his bodies, he couldn't change the main shape of it, though he could tweak the features here and there. This one had a big chunk out of the side of its head, giving it an almost crescent shape. He simply darned the gap between the front and back, and smoothed the ragged edges. Speaking of the head, the hair was dreadful and disgusting. Perhaps it was best to just forego it entirely.

The lines on his cheeks were a nice detail as well, although they would look better in red.

Another thing he noticed, much to his annoyance, thanks to having to lop them off, he was going to have to go leg free as well. Much as he wanted to replace them, he couldn't make that drastic a change. Even though he had been the one to remove them in the first place. And he'd been so looking forward to walking, too. He could probably waddle around on the stumps that remained, but that seemed difficult and undignified.

It took some time for his strings to weave the changes to his body, and the effort left him fatigued, sinking into an old abandoned armchair near the wall. It was a familiar, uncomfortable feeling, he decided. At least he didn't seem to feel hungry anymore, though it was not as comforting as he had hoped. 

_He was a ghost, right? Dead?_

He was an immortal being of pure will and power, he couldn't die!

_He sure felt dead. His fingers were frostbitten from being in the cold cellar for so long._

"...I'm arguing with myself now. Wonderful."

_Cold, dead, prince…all alone..._

"Stop it!" He demanded, as though the thoughts and feelings were able to hear him. He pulled himself out of the chair and grit his teeth. "I'm not a prince!"

_Sure is lonely up here._

He struck his forehead against the wall firmly. "We don't get LONELY!" He wobbled, and fell to the floor, holding his head with a whimper. "Moonjumper does not… get lonely.." He whimpered. "Or sc-scared.. Or… "

He started to sob, curling up into a ball on the floor. He wasn't supposed to. But here he was. Scared, alone, trapped. It might have been more comfortable than the cellar, but it didn't feel like he had escaped anything.

It was still cold.


	5. Compelling

It was cold.

The cubby house that they had sheltered in was not the roomiest, nor was it the most comfortable for long periods of time. The ghostly children had grown bored long before he had woken up, and were playing outside in the children's village, chasing each other across the grass.

He rubbed his face and pulled himself out of the small house, looking around. The snow that had blown away earlier did not seem to have fallen again. Curiously though, he could see snow piles a short distance away, and snow falling, keeping them heartilly topped up. But here in the village, the air was clear. How curious.

He moved through the village and left on the main path, with the intent of turning left when he reached the bridge, to take the road to the edge of the forest and their border not far beyond that. The curious ghostly children followed after him, flitting about him in the air like butterflies. They seemed to be adapting to their afterlife surprisingly well… children were resilient, he supposed. Some of them seemed especially happy with their new ghostly ability to fly. 

He had wanted to know how far out the snow stretched. It didn't feel like a real winter, so he supposed that by some point, the ground would be clear. How far out that was going to be he wasn't sure... Hopefully no one outside their small kingdom had suffered this murderous cold too.

He had made it all the way to the bridge that led to town before he realised he hadn't reached the snowbank yet. He turned his eyes to the ground, and he was still in the middle of a patch clear from snow. He was sure there had been snow on the bridge hardly a few minutes ago. He looked over his shoulder down the path he had come, and blinked in surprise. The children's village was slowly being covered in a blanket of soft snow.

He looked back in front of him, and then took off at a jog towards the snow covered path that would lead to their border, eyes firmly locked on the snowbank. It was amazing. No matter how fast he ran, as he approached, the snow would melt, leaving his path clear. And behind him, after a while, the snow would start to fall again.

As he approached the edge of the forest, he stopped. Before he could think, he dove behind a tree. There was someone coming. 

A peasant merchant by the looks of things, was pulling a small cart along behind them. No doubt coming from one of the small hamlets that surrounded the forest, or perhaps from one of the neighbouring kingdoms, his wares looked to be inexpensive fabrics, as well as tools and other household goods. He watched the man shudder as he walked between the trees, the unnatural cold hanging thickly in the air. He was muttering to himself as he walked.  
"That kid… 'I'll just be a minute' he says. This stuff won't sell itself…" The man grumbled. "He better catch up, or he's gunna get nothin from the town store…"

He stepped out from behind the tree. "Hello?" 

The man whipped around, eyes wide. He dropped his cart in shock. "Ah!!" He scrambled for a short sword at his side, pointing the blade at the stranger with a shaking hand. "Wh-what kind of monster are you?!"

He curled in on himself slightly. "I… I'm not… I'm not a…"

The man took a swing at him, making him stumble back. "W-wait! It's.. not… Please stop!! I'm the- AH!"  
He fell back onto his rear to avoid another swing of the sword blade.

The merchant seemed emboldened by his success against the dark skinned monster before him. He chuckled nervously. "P..People will… pay big money for a dead monster…!" He declared. "I'll be a _hero_! The Queen'll make me rich!!" He declared as he brought the sword up for another strike.

A spike of panic shot through him at the mention of the queen. He threw his hands out in defense, hoping at the very least to knock the blade away from his head and chest.

The sword never came down. Both parties seemed as surprised as one another.

The human was standing stock still, sword still raised above his head ready to bring down. But he was looking in horror at the two purple hands buried within his chest. They had passed through the flesh without any blood or wound, as if the merchant were made of nothing more than air. 

The owner of those hands blinked, and wiggled his fingers a little inside the merchant, making him whimper. "G-get...y...yer mitts… o..outta me!!" He attempted, though he still didn't dare bring the sword down with those hands inside his torso, if he was able to do so at all.

He could _feel_ something. Brushing up against his fingertips. It almost felt… _warm_. Compelled by curiosity and drawn by that warmth, he wrapped his hands around it, and pulled it out.

What came out in his hands was a small, glowing orb, about the size of a small apple and the colour of fresh cut grass. It rippled as though it were made of jelly, distorting ever so slightly in shape as he pressed against it with his fingers. 

He looked back up at the man, who was staring at him in shock. His eyes looked hollow, face sunken. His arms fell to his sides, the sword falling to the dirt. "Wh..?"

He looked back at the glowing thing. It didn't seem like the man knew what it was.. And he didn't either. Whatever it was something was compelling him to keep it. No, more than keep it… he wanted to _eat_ it.

The man before him managed to utter the beginnings of a protest, but was unable to do much more than that before the glowing orb vanished into the dark creature's mouth. He probably should have taken bites, or at least chewed it. Swallowing it whole seemed a little… undignified. But this came as an afterthought as he gulped the object down comfortably.

An amazing feeling pooled in his belly as the orb settled inside him. A wave of power coursed through him, rustling the leaves and the grass, and knocking the merchant man over. He almost felt… bigger. He giggled to himself a little, possibly a little too much. He didn't know how to describe the feeling. It was better than anything he had ever felt before! Though, the euphoria was disappointingly short lived, already starting to fade.

He pulled himself up onto his knees, and shook the man on the ground before him. "H...hey…?"

The merchant didn't appear to be breathing.

"H..Hey!" he shook him harder, but the human did not resume any activities associated with living. He was limp, cooling, breath and heartbeat stopped. He just stayed limp on the ground. "O..oh no…" He whispered.

Suddenly, a scream made him look up. 

Standing a short way down the path there was a young man. Boy, really. By how he was dressed, he was a merchant's apprentice… perhaps the 'kid' that the older man had been mumbling about before his final encounter.

"M...Monster…!" He shrieked. "You killed him!!"

He opened his mouth to protest, to deny it, but he stopped before the words could come forth. Looking at the boy, he could sense something, nestled comfortably in the skinny human's rib cage. Another of those glowing orbs? Did the boy have one in him too? The thought made him salivate. Another would be _delightful._

The apprentice did not have any thoughts of monster slaying like the master had done. Instead of advancing and taking up arms, he instead turned on his heel, and sprinted back the way he had come as fast as he could go, letting another scream pass his lips.

He blinked rapidly, as though coming out of a trance. What on earth had come over him…?

He cast his eyes at the man lying dead on the path, his cart of goods abandoned. He _had_ killed him, hadn't he. Somehow.

With a whimper he dragged the merchant off the path and amongst the trees. With his bare hands, he dug a shallow grave and gently buried the man in the soil beneath a tree, sobbing all the while. When it was done, he fashioned a cross from some branches, and some twine he found in the man's cart, sticking it into the earth as a marker.

When he was done, he picked up the rungs of the merchant cart, and slowly started back down the path towards the children's village, trying to distract himself from what he had done by thinking how these goods might be of some use. The feeling in his belly had distinctly worn off.

  
  


It was still cold.


	6. A Regrettable Habit

It was cold.

The light that came through the window never changed, so he had no way to tell how much time had passed. Hours? Days? ...Longer? If it were the latter, then he had his lack of bodily functions to thank for his continued boredom in the attic. Not needing to eat or sleep, or any other processes for that matter, certainly made a difference. Some things just could not be accommodated in his current hiding place.

The memories and thoughts were still… there. He tried to think of them as an outsider's thoughts, hoping that if he personified them as someone else, they wouldn't continue to blur into his own thought process. But the memories were so  _ vivid. _ His own memories spanned far longer than this new collection, and some of them were… vague. Dull, almost. None of his vessels had bestowed him with anything like this before, though he'd had vague feelings of if the item had been loved or mistreated, if it were new or an heirloom, but never anything more than that. They were inanimate vessels. That was kind of the point. 

It was a bit of a worry. He didn't want his memories to fade! He needed to ground himself somehow… if he couldn't force these memories out of his head then… at the very least needed to make peace with them, so they wouldn't continue to try and override his mind. He came to a solution when, rather unexpectedly, he came across some art supplies in some of the old boxes that had been stored up here.

He had been going through them for a way to occupy himself, and was surprised to find a large stack of paper and a rather sizeable collection of paints and paintbrushes.

_ These are mine… _ he felt himself think.

He had sneered at them initially, but kept looking back at the box they were in after he had moved on to look in others, in which he found books and documents. The feeling of these items being his was stronger than with the paint. There were novels and textbooks, and he staved off the boredom for a while reading and rereading the familiar texts. Though his eyes kept returning to the box that held the painting supplies.

His vessel had used to paint. Portraits and other such images. He had been rather crafty, it seemed. It was familiar, actually. His own craft was better suited to cloth, but there was an art about both, he supposed.

Painting had been something his vessel had enjoyed, and in theory, his body would have enough muscle memory remaining to allow him to do the same, now. And if he painted, he would at least be entertained for a while. If he painted… and painted from  _ his _ memory rather than from the vessel's… maybe they could come to some sort of accord? Maybe he could keep the new memories at bay?

He couldn't help but feel a little excited as he set up all the paints and started to create vivid images on the paper. He recounted a number of stories he knew, from when he had been in all sorts of different vessels. Being on the sea had been rather amusing, though he would avoid being a sea captain's hat again. The smell of cigarettes felt like it had followed him for another three bodies afterwards.

He found himself chuckling at some of the stories he illustrated. "I never did work out where they got that giant meat in the end." He mused out loud, carefully painting in a comically large piece of meat on a bone, beside some blue clad humans, cheerfully playing with a beach ball. "I wonder if they found what they were looking for."

He spent hours, maybe days painting, nine stories laid out across the floor of the attic. "What other adventure should we paint?" He mused.

He found his brush moving, painting out some more scenes with what was left of his paper. A woman in green and a man in red. Vanessa. And.. him? This was one of his vessel's memories, not one of his!

He stopped over an image of his vessel being pulled away by some guards, Vanessa changing from the fair woman in earlier paintings, to the crone he recognized from the house below.

He put down his brush. "....Is that what happened to you?" He whispered. "To us?" The more he thought about it, the more he remembered Vanessa changing. Had she hated the flowers that much?

He sighed and looked over the mass of paintings. He still had paint left, but there wasn't enough paper to do another story. He looked around the attic, eyes landing on the large wall opposite the window. He scooped up his brush again and started painting the wall. He didn't have the most interesting face, so far as he was concerned, but there was nothing quite like a self portrait. 

He had to declare the mural finished when he had run out of paint. He could read some more, but he had grown bored of the same small collection of books over and over. He took apart an old grandfather clock he had found in the corner under a sheet for a further distraction, but it only did so much. He started thinking about departure. He couldn't stay in the attic forever!

He would have to get past Vanessa if he wanted to escape. His powers might be able to distract her, but they weren't exactly meant for fighting with. Perhaps he could make a decoy of sorts that would keep her occupied long enough for him to flee?

He'd tried to leave the attic a few times before he had started painting. He'd only made it as far as opening the door a crack, and just the once. He had heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the lower floor, preceded by more of that bitter, chilled air, and he had shut it again, retreating back to the wardrobe, where the illusion of safety was the strongest.

That woman terrified him.. terrified his vessel. He was afraid because his vessel was. He knew she could damage or even destroy his body; his lack of legs was clear enough proof of that. But he'd never been too worried about that before… he could always find another body. Though his newfound impulses made him feel so… vulnerable.

It was infuriating. 

He was not going to sit here and hide any more. Even if it was just to spite this cowardly body he found himself attached to, he  _ was _ getting out of here. He was  _ Moonjumper! _ He was not going to be confined any more!!

He crept to the door, and opened it a crack. Peeking down the hall, he listened for any sign of his demonic captor. When he thought it was safe, he drifted out, making his way towards the stairs at the other side of the corridor.

He didn't even make it down the stairs. He could feel a chill wafting up them. She was coming. 

He cursed, and dove into the closest room, which turned out to be the master bedroom, and ducked into the wardrobe, pulling the door shut behind him.

This was getting to be a regrettable habit.

He listened to Vanessa's footsteps come up the stairs, and enter the bedroom, filling the room with that icy air. She was singing to herself in a sort of deranged sort of way, moving about the bedroom for a while before leaving again. A few moments later, the sound of water sounded from the bathroom across the hall. 

He pulled himself out of the wardrobe and looked around the bedroom. It hardly looked different to how he… how  _ his body _ remembered it. There was distinct age, and seemed as though the walls and furniture had been subject to wrathful claws at some point. He turned to leave, when an open book on the desk caught his eye. A diary?

Better judgement lost out against curiosity, and he drifted over, picking it up and flicking through it. Perhaps there was some hint as to where things went so wrong. His vessel's memories might relent somewhat if he got some closure.

In hindsight, it had been a foolish thought.

The text was the ramblings of a madwoman. She raved in her diary, going on about her prince and how unfaithful he was, how she wanted to lock him in the cellar to keep him all to herself. It made his metaphorical blood boil. These memories were not those of an unfaithful man! He'd been hopelessly in love with her! But to Vanessa, every little action was some sort of offence. 

He was angry. He was angry and was sure that it was his own anger too. His vessel almost felt sad, like he could have done more. But  _ he _ was angry. How dare that woman be so cruel to him..!

He took the diary in both hands and ripped the pages out from the binding before tossing the book to the floor and making for the door. He wasn't going to stay in this place with that crazy woman. He wasn't going to deal with her problems! 

He peeked out of the bedroom door into the hall. The sound of water was still sounding from the bathroom across the hall, and so for the time being at least, the way downstairs was clear.

He made a break for the stairs, actually somewhat glad that his need to float meant that he did not make footsteps as he made his way down through the manor, his movement silent to the crone using the shower above.

The downstairs floor of the manor was just as eerie as the floor above. The walls had all been attacked with those same feral claws, almost nothing was free from signs of deranged violence. And there were other things too which made his heart sink.

There were statues of ice dotted here and there, of people he recognized. They'd been staff at the manor. He gently touched his fingers to the arm of one of the butlers, frozen into an expression of shock. He instantly regretted it.

The slight touch made the statue tremble and crumble, falling to pieces on the ruined carpet.

He covered his mouth with his hands to stifle the gasp of horror that wanted to pass through his lips. It wasn't enough to kill him, she had to kill all these people too?! He forced the prince's sadness away and kept anger in the front. He couldn't lose himself to a dead man's despair.

He pulled himself away from the crumbled ice, and made for the front door. It was locked, but that wouldn't stop him. His threads gathered in his hand, forming a key. He put the red key in the lock and turned it, before flinging the doors open to the elements.

Snow and wind roared inside, and he was off at a sprint, heading for the ruined property gate in the distance, near a small crack in the ice wall. He'd never been so happy to be outside! Though, it was impossible to overlook the weather.

It was still cold.


	7. Familiar

It was cold.

He was almost used to it by now. Like most everything else in this place, the temperature hardly changed at all. Even in the height of summer that scorched the fields outside the forest, or proper winter which blanketed them in snow.

With the weather so constant, and everything else in the forest so still, all he had to look forward to was the occasional visitors. 

The first two had been a surprise. The poor merchant… he hadn't meant to kill him. But his apprentice had spread the word about the 'monster' in the woods. Heroes and other curious folk started coming to the forest en masse. Some were in mind to defeat him and get the glory. Others were after treasures that might have been left behind. A few came thinking he was a hoax. None of them got to go home.

He'd stopped feeling guilty after a while.

Many of the visitors died at his hands, same as the merchant had done. It helped that he realised that most of them couldn't hurt him. That, and the lure of that delicious glowing orb- their souls, he had realised -was too great to pass up. Oh how  _ powerful _ they made him feel. And the more of them he ate, the less snow he saw. Whatever it was about him that was keeping the snow at bay grew more potent as time marched on. The only place not affected… was the town itself, on the other side of the bridge.

From her being there, he supposed.

He rather did enjoy the power he felt, these days. After so long of meekly nodding his head and just going along with things, he could laugh out loud and not worry a jot about who could hear. He could tell the burly warriors that came to the forest to fight him what to do without being polite about it. Some of them even did as he asked! For someone that had lived as nobility, he never really had that much power in his own right. This power was his. It was a delightful thought, and an even better feeling.

He could do whatever he wanted.

The spirits of the children were his only company outside the occasional warrior or fortune seeker. They were cheeky things, having taken to this much easier than he had, though they didn't seem at all interested in souls as he was. They often lured the unsuspecting into traps for him, getting them lost between the trees like a demented game of hide and seek. 

He was also fair game for their pranks at times, though the most… informative time was when they had decided to hang his meal up high in the forest trees. Still alive, squirming, facing certain death should they let themselves fall, though certain death waited for them in any case.

The children, he'd started calling them Dwellers, couldn't speak as such. He picked up intent from them, but nothing more. And when they had gotten the trespasser caught up in the tree, their intent was absolutely to tease him.

They laughed and rolled through the air as he tried to get at the man in the branches, trying to climb up the smooth tree trunk, throwing rocks at him to try and make him fall, nothing seemed to work.

Eventually, he was so frustrated he just jumped. To his surprise he didn't touch back down on the ground.

He could  _ fly. _

The revelation was so shocking that the man in the tree was forgotten, and he lost track of time zipping through the trees as fast as he could push himself instead. All the inhabitants of the forest were suddenly part of a high speed game of tag, between the tall trees of the forest and around their dilapidated ghost village.    
When the Dwellers grew bored of the game and flitted off to find something else to do, he instead went up. 

He flew up high above the tops of the trees and looked around, taking it all in. The fields around him seemed familiar from when he had used to travel, towns that he thought he knew dotted in the distance. Closer to home, he could see the whole forest, how far it stretched in each direction, and, notably, the large dome of ice that sat to the north side of it.

It made his heart twinge uncomfortably. 

From here he could see that most of the trees that grew around it were dusted with snow, and far thinner than those that grew further away. Even up here his presence seemed to be keeping the snow at bay, though, he did not like the idea of going wandering and having the forest freeze over again. He also had no interest in finding out how far that forced winter would reach. So long as he was stronger than she was, and she stayed put in the manor, then everything would be… okay enough.

It was from up here that something caught his eye.

The great ice dome was not a flawless shape, and in fact was reasonably open at the top. It was higher than anyone could climb of course, especially without equipment. But birds and other flying sorts could easily get in, if they could survive the cold. Most didn't try.

But from here he could see something flying above the imposing ice walls, and then dropping down on the other side, vanishing from sight between the ruined buildings of the town. He couldn't tell what it was from this high up, but it had to have been at least the size of a man, and looked red in colour. He couldn't imagine there being anyone  _ alive  _ in that place, and certainly not anyone that could fly. 

Gripped with a sudden worry that it had been the size of a _woman_ rather than of a man and she had decided to leave the manor, he dropped back down to the ground, making his way hurriedly in the direction he had seen it.

The Dwellers he passed on the way seem to have noticed the newcomer, but weren't scared, like he imagined they would be if it were her, but still, he couldn't relax until he was sure…!

He cleared the dried up riverbed that separated the town from the rest of the forest with ease, helped by his newfound ability to fly, and hurried down the path to the town square. Spotting the figure, he froze, and stared at them with wide eyes.

The figure, dressed in a familiar red doublet, heard his approach, and turned to look at him, eyes just as wide. Stunned, they could only look at each other, jaw slightly agape in exactly the same manner.

A wind blew the snow into a slight flurry between them.

It was still cold.


End file.
